My Journey to Lose 200 Pounds

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Ok, it’s about time I started blogging again. I have found that blogging keeps me motivated, it keeps me honest with myself and those who read my blog, and it holds me accountable for my actions.

My actions as of late have been downright horrible. For the past 2 months, my diet has been back and forth. I’ll eat healthy for breakfast and lunch. Then when snack time rolls around, I’ll go buy 4 cupcakes and eat them all. Or I’ll go to this popcorn place near my work and I’ll buy a large bag of salty delicious popcorn and eat it all.

Dinner is even worse. I’ve been to Panda Express for dinner too many times to count, just this month! And I’ve eaten from Raising Canes almost as many times. Nothing good can come from Raising Canes… All they sell is fried chicken tenders, fries, and creamy coleslaw.

THIS HAS TO STOP! I’ve gained back a little weight (10 pounds), and I’m sitting at just under 300 pounds. I got down to 287 and just kind of quit. I quit exercising, I quit caring as much about what I ate, I quit blogging… I just got busy and lazy.

BUT, that all changes today! Today I’m back to my healthy lifestyle again!

-NO more sweets
-NO more pop or sweet tea (I probably had about 5 sugary drinks in the past couple months, so that hasn’t been too horrible)
-NO more fast food
-NO more popcorn (unless it’s healthy popcorn)
NO more food binges

I’m nearing my one year anniversary of the day I started this journey and I want to end the year on a high note. I started December 18th, 2012. I’d like to have lost 90 pounds by that date this year, so this is me officially setting that goal.

Wish me luck! I’m going to need lots of it! Oh and willpower, I need lots of that too. I can and will do this!

Since I’m trying to hold myself accountable, here’s what I ate today.

Breakfast- 1 and 1/2 cups of Cheerios with 1 and 1/4 cup skim milk.

Lunch- Ham and cheese sandwich on low calorie bread with fat free mayo, can of low sodium tomato juice, and a banana.

Snack- Homemade turkey meatballs and spaghetti soup, handful of cashews, and a small bowl of Kashi 7 grain puffs cereal with skim milk.

Since I’ve started back to school, the only completely free days I have now are Sundays. On Sunday’s, I have to do my homework, clean my apartment, do the dishes, keep up my car maintenance, do my laundry, take my dog in to be groomed, see my family, grocery shop, prep my meals for the week, etc. Obviously I don’t do ALL of that EVERY Sunday, but I do most of it regularly.

On top of all of that, my work days somehow keep getting longer. It’s becoming regular to get home from work at 8 or after.

I knew I needed to come up with something to make things a bit easier for me for at least the next few weeks. So, I decided to buy my dinners and snacks from My Fit Foods instead of having to cook this week.

Another reason I decided to go to My Fit Foods (MFF) is because when I cook at home, I have to eat the same thing multiple times for dinner. I’m REALLY getting burnt out on the same foods by the end of the week, which is making it harder to stay on the healthy eating track. With the MFF meals, I can have variety and I’m very much so looking forward to that!

If you’re not familiar with My Fit Foods, let me tell you a little bit about it!

MFF is a store that sells fresh, healthy, prepared foods. They’re sold in little microwavable containers. They have breakfast options, lunch options, snack options, dinner options, and even dessert options. Their foods come in 3 different sizes (small, medium, and large) so that you can choose which one is right for you.

Our MFF opened in October of last year. I remember I tried it out shortly after they opened (2 months before my Drs. visit that changed everything) and I didn’t have the best of luck with it. I thought the food was boring and I found it hard to eat.

I decided to give it another chance because the person I am now is way different than the person I was then. I enjoy healthy food now, but back then I was still eating pizza and burgers everyday, so of course I wasn’t a fan of their foods.

I’m really glad I decided to go to MFF this week. It’s made my life just a little bit easier. No cooking and no dishes this week!

I went to MFF on Monday and got 5 dinners, 1 breakfast, 4 snacks, 1 dessert, and 1 individual bag of healthy egg white chips for the week, all for $78.

I tried my first meal Monday night. I had the Fit Nation Chicken Nuggets. It’s chicken breast meat cut into nugget size and breaded with almond four, flax meal, and spices. It’s served with broccoli, cinnamon carrots, and their version of “honey mustard” which is plain yellow mustard sweetened with agave nectar. This meal in the medium size has 390 calories.

I would give this meal an 8/10. The “honey mustard” was delicious. I’m really glad it came with the meal because it made the chicken taste better than it did without the sauce. The carrots were surprisingly delicious! And the broccoli was good. Nothing special, just broccoli. I’ll buy this meal again for sure.

The next meal I tried was the H-Town Breakfast. I knew I’d love this one because it has chicken apple breakfast sausage links in it. It also has rosemary red potatoes and scrambled eggs. This meal in the small size has 290 calories.

The great thing about their breakfasts is that they use a 5:1 ratio for the eggs, meaning they use 5 egg whites for every 1 yolk. I did have to salt my eggs and potatoes a little, but I’ll try not to next time. I’d give this meal a 9/10.

The next thing I tried was one of their snacks, the Healthy Hummus Bowl. It comes with a small cup of hummus, chopped grilled chicken breast, celery, carrots, and grape tomatoes. This meal only comes in one size and has 150 calories.

There was more of everything but I was hungry and almost forgot to take a picture!

The hummus was fantastic! I really enjoyed it most with the carrots. The tomatoes and chicken made it a good snack. I definitely could have done without the celery though. I give this snack a 6.5/10.

My next meal was Cynthia’s BBQ Chicken. It had chopped BBQ chicken breast, cheddar mashed red potatoes, and green beans. This meal in a size medium has 390 calories.

This meal was great, BUT, I did add my own BBQ sauce. There simply wasn’t enough on the chicken, so I added about 2 tablespoons of my own favorite BBQ sauce which only added 30 calories. The potatoes and green beans were good, but I did again add just a little bit of salt. What can I say, I love my salt.

I enjoyed this meal because it was simple and it was something I could eat more than once in a week. I give it a 7.5/10.

I’ve got more meals and snacks to review this week, so I’ll blog again soon with the results!

So, if you’re looking for convenience while still eating healthy, I suggest you try out My Fit Foods! Here’s a link to their website. Go check them out! Seriously!

I say “recipes” because these two things I’m about to show you are soooooooo easy. But, they’re also delicious, healthy, and really quick!

The first is my new favorite salad. Let’s call it, Lindsay’s Grilled Chicken Salad. All of my recipes have my name in them for some reason. I guess if I put my name in it, then it’s my way of saying “I, Lindsay, Stroud, invented this.” It kind of makes me feel famous. 🙂

Put the lettuce on the plate or bowl first. Then, add all of the other toppings. I like to arrange mine so it looks pretty.

I serve this salad with 3 tablespoons of light balsamic vinaigrette. There is seriously something amazing about having the sweet pineapple with the salty balsamic dressing. The second day I had this salad for lunch, I ended up adding more pineapple to my salad because I just loved the pineapple in there so much. And of course, it wouldn’t be a salad without hard boiled eggs. Yum!

The next “recipe” is a ridiculously easy snack. I’ve had it for my afternoon snack every single day this week.

It’s zucchini pizza bites and I got the idea from Gina over at skinnytaste.com.

First, spray a sauté pan with oil spray and turn on to medium-high heat. Add zucchini slices and spray oil again on top of zucchini slices. Sauté a few minutes on each side or until browned to your liking.

Once browned, take out of pan and place on a microwavable plate. Top each zucchini with a little of the marinara sauce.

Then, top each zucchini with the shredded mozzarella cheese.

Heat in the microwave for 10-20 seconds or until cheese is melted.

Be careful as they will be hot right out of the microwave. Once cooled off, eat and enjoy!

This afternoon snack has quickly become one of my favorites. As far as calories go, the zucchini has 11 calories, the cheese has 80 calories, and the marinara sauce has 18 calories for a total of 109 calories. The way I cut my zucchini, I usually get 8-9 pizza bites. Add some sliced pineapple and some kale chips and it’s the perfect 225 calorie snack!

I haven’t really talked too much about the regular foods I’ve been eating lately, so I thought I’d tell you all about them.

My breakfast most days is Cheerios. Not the honey nut or flavored Cheerios, but the plain ones. Since I started following those new Skinny Rules by Bob Harper, I now incorporate 1/2 a cup of sliced strawberries into my cereal every morning.

Strawberries just make the Cheerios look so much prettier. 🙂

For lunch, I had been eating sandwich wraps for at least the past 2 months. I finally got sick of wraps. Since Bob talked about how you should be eating whole grain or whole wheat foods (instead of processed enriched flour), I started buying the Ezekiel sprouted grain bread and making regular sandwiches for lunch instead of wraps. I of course made my delicious turkey sandwiches with hummus a couple days this week, along with tuna salad sandwiches. With my sandwiches, I always have a side salad with tomatoes and a little cheese with one of my light dressings.

If I need a change (sometimes I just want a warm lunch!) I grab something from a fast food chain. I usually eat out for lunch once every week or two. One place I love to go to is Taco Bueno. They have a steak salad bowl that has steak, mixed lettuce, grilled peppers and onions, cheese, black beans, pico de gallo, and corn salsa.

Instead of dressing, I use the salsa and it comes in at just under 400 calories with the salsa. I can even add a cup of tortilla soup to my lunch and still be at 520 calories. Perfect!

I must say, I really miss having a job where I can sit down for lunch and have a normal lunch break. Because of my job, most days I eat lunch in my car, sometimes while driving. Also, I never realized how nice it was to have a job where you can use their microwave to heat up your lunch. I don’t have a microwave in my car, obviously (but that’d be cool if I did though!) so my lunches are cold lunches 90% of the time. Cold food is ok, but I prefer a warm meal. I think that’s why I look forward to dinner. Dinners are always warm. 🙂

Dinners last week and dinners this week are a little different. Last week I tried to incorporate more fish into my diet, but I hadn’t eliminated the carbs for dinner yet. Last week I had pumpkin seed encrusted sea bass with asparagus and mashed parsnips and potatoes a couple days for dinner.

I love sea bass. It’s probably my favorite fish. It’s flaky and firm and rich and delicious! The pumpkin seed crust was great with the sea bass. And parsnips are probably my favorite vegetable on Earth. Mixed with a potato, they bring a unique flavor to plain old mashed potatoes.

This week, I’m eliminating carbs after my afternoon snack. Since I’ve been making low carb foods already, it’s actually been extremely easy to cut out the carbs from dinner.

This week, I made tacos for dinner. Instead of tortillas, I used lettuce wraps. I made cod fish tacos and also ground turkey tacos. The ground turkey tacos are my favorite. They’re super simple too.

I sauté one diced bell pepper and 1/2 of a large yellow onion that’s also diced, then add one pound of ground turkey and cook until done. I add 2 ounces of tomato sauce, a packet of spicy taco seasoning, and 3/4 cup water and cook until it thickens up. That’s it!

I use four whole iceberg lettuce leafs, 2 leafs per taco. I use 2 leafs per taco so that they’ll be sturdier and hold the fillings without falling apart. One pound of ground turkey makes 8 tacos, or 4 servings (2 tacos per serving).

The first picture is fish tacos and the second is ground turkey tacos. Yum!

I get those 2 big tacos for dinner for 350 calories!

I fill my tacos with shredded cabbage, Greek yogurt, salsa, and just a little bit of cheese. I add a side of steamed broccoli for a 415 calorie dinner. By cutting out carbs for dinner, I’m reducing my calorie intake by 150-200 calories. I like finding ways to reduce my calorie intake. I was struggling the past couple months to be at 1800 calories or less a day. Now I’m easily staying at 1800 or less.

Last but not least, it’s my afternoon snack. My afternoon snack really varies depending on what I’m craving. One thing I had all week though for snack was apple slices. In The Skinny Rules book, Bob says to eat apple and berries every single day. I got the individual packs of sliced apples, and I actually like them. I thought I hated apples, but I think I just hated eating them whole. I guess I prefer them sliced. Or maybe my taste buds are changing? Eh, who cares. I’m eating apples now and that’s all that matters!

With my apples, I’ll have an ounce or an ounce and a half of roasted unsalted almonds, or a bag of skinny pop popcorn, or a large side of green beans from KFC (it’s the warm food craving), or hummus and veggies. Since I usually have 7 hours between lunch and dinner, I increased my afternoon snack calorie total to about 300 calories. It’s almost like eating 4 smaller meals a day. After dinner, I usually have about 200-300 calories leftover, so most every night, I have a bowl of cereal with skim milk for my evening snack. I’m trying to cut out carbs after 4:30, so I really need to come up with a different snack option for my evening snack. I really love cereal and have gotten into a habit of having a bowl every night, so it’s going to be a hard habit to break.

Speaking of habits, I broke my diet pop drinking habit. I haven’t had pop, or diet pop, or any artificially sweetened drinks in 9 days. Woohoo! Really didn’t think I’d be able to do it, but I did! 🙂

The only things I drink now are mainly water and skim milk. I’ll occasionally have a tea and that’s about it.

Well, that’s basically what I’ve been eating and drinking lately. I want to try out a new recipe this weekend for my dinners next week, so I’m sure you’ll get to hear all about it soon.

It’s Friday and I’ve got a three day weekend (Saturday, Sunday, and Monday) so I’m excited to hurry up and get today over with! Hope you all have a great weekend!

Yesterday ended up being a bad day. Even after the plateau, it got worse… Last night, even after dinner, I COULDN’T stop snacking.

I ate dinner, then had a small bowl of cereal for my evening snack. I felt like I wasn’t satisfied, so I went looking in the cabinets for a snack. First I had a scoop of PB2 with vanilla and honey in it. Then, I had a single serving chicken noodle soup mix. Then, I had some almonds. And finally, I ate some hot beef jerky.

After I ate all of that, I was full! But as I was eating snack after snack, I got more annoyed with myself that I couldn’t get that satisfied feeling in my stomach.

So what’s my solution to this problem?

Well, I googled ways to stop from snacking and here are a few ideas/tips I’m going to try tonight.

Tip #1
Brush your teeth and then use whitener. Who wants to eat after they have a fresh clean mouth and whitener on their teeth? I’m sure no one does, so this sounds like a fool proof idea!

Tip #2
Treat yourself to scented candles. Some girl said she tried this and it worked! I’ve got lots of yummy scented candles so I’m trying this for sure tonight.

Tip #3
Instead of snack, have a drink. I’ve seen some really cool ideas for flavored waters on Pinterest.

I picked up some fruit earlier so that I can make some flavored water tonight! I got oranges, limes, and lemon to make a citrus water.

Tip #4
Don’t sit and watch TV. It makes you feel like you should be doing something, which usually means snacking. I watch too much TV, I know. So my plan is to do something else while I watch TV. Maybe pay my bills online, make lunch for the next day, do some cleaning, etc.

I’m going to use these tips tonight to help get me through another possible snack attack.

Also, I got some good advice on how to get past the plateau I’ve hit. I am doing something for myself! I bought a new pair of workout yoga pants online, along with a new shirt, a sports bra, and an active go dry tank all from Old Navy.

I’m excited to try out the new workout clothes, so I’d say this was just what I needed to pick myself up and not be down on myself. And to give myself that extra push, I chose a reward for when I hit the 50 pound weight loss goal! I’ve had my eye on some new tennis shoes by Sketchers, so I decided I’ll buy these new shoes when I hit 50 pounds!

So basically I had a ranch chicken wrap. It had grilled chicken, lots of romaine lettuce, yogurt ranch salad dressing, and Parmesan cheese all wrapped up in my favorite low carb-high fiber wheat tortilla.

Well, I worked. Nothing special. Luckily it wasn’t too busy at work and I got to watch a couple shows that are on the DVR in between working. I’m a huge reality TV fan. So I watched The Taste, Teen Mom 2, and American Idol. Idol is definitely my favorite TV show on right now (followed by Glee). 🙂

What I worked out Wednesday.

I worked out my body of course! But more specifically, I worked out on the elliptical for 33 minutes. Last Wednesday, I did the elliptical for 30 minutes. My goal for this Wednesday was to increase the amount of time I went. Yay for improvement!

I took a picture of the machine at 30 minutes (it stops at 30 minutes for some reason) but I kept going for another 3 minutes after. Total, I burned about 240 calories. That’s like 1/2 of my lunch in calories. Once I get up to an hour on the elliptical, that’d be almost 500 calories burned! (New goal! Burn 500 calories…..at once.)

What I thought Wednesday.

Today, I actually couldn’t stop thinking about tomorrow! I’m getting off work a couple hours early tomorrow and I’m spending the evening with my mom. I can’t tell you what we’re doing, but I CAN tell you that it’s going to be lots of fun! I’ll of course blog about it, so you’ll have to come back after tomorrow to find out what we did! 🙂

Another thought I had today, which is unrelated to anything, was about the weather. The weather today was 50 degrees. So if you’re standing in the shade, it’s like “I’m chilly, I need my sweatshirt on.” If you’re standing in the sunlight, it’s more like “It’s warm in this sweatshirt.” Move two feet and you’re back in the shade. Move two more feet and you’re back in the sun. It’s a lose lose! That’s Oklahoma weather for ya!

In the blog world, a lot of bloggers blog about what they ate on Wednesday and they do it every week on the same day. I thought I’ll particulate in that today since I’ll be having a non-typical food day. Also since I’ll be eating out for dinner (at a buffet) it might help hold me accountable for what I’m eating and hopefully sway my food decisions to be better decisions.

So what did I eat today?

Breakfast was 1 and 1/2 cups of plain Cheerios and 1 and 1/4 cup skim milk.

Lunch was my new favorite lunch. It’s a California wrap using a low carb wheat tortilla, 100 calorie pouch of guacamole, sliced Roma tomatoes, smoked deli turkey, lots of green leaf lettuce, 3 slices of turkey bacon, one piece of fat free cheese, and sliced red onion. I can’t say enough about this wrap. I’m in love with it! I also had a grapple to go with my wrap. It’s more calories than my lunches have been in the past, but it keeps me full longer. When I’d eat sandwiches, I’d be really hungry by 5:00. Now I’m good with a small snack at 5:00 and have no problem making it to dinner.

My snack today was 4 pieces of pickled okra and 2 cups of lightly salted popcorn with no butter. I love having popcorn as a snack because 2 cups of popcorn seems like a lot of snack for only 70 calories.

Dinner is where it gets hard. I went out to dinner with my family for my step-moms birthday to a buffet. I tried to cut out a few calories here and there today so that I would have a few extra calories for dinner.

I had 850 calories left for dinner. This may seem like a big number, but it’s really not. At a buffet, you’re really not sure what foods are in the items on their buffet. For example, they may have corn, but I’m sure it’s buttered, which means there are lots of places where hidden calories can lie. So I tried to make mostly great choices and my splurges were small. I didn’t go for any foods that were super fatty or cheesy or greasy. Also, I had 1/2 of a sugar free cookie for dessert and it was all I needed. Here’s a picture of my dinner plates.

I went for the shrimp and cocktail sauce because I knew it was a good healthy option.

The second plate consists of a small amount of corn, lots of Brussels sprouts, green beans, braised cabbage, baked fish, broccoli from the Chinese stir fry, a couple bites of Chinese rice and noodles, and some stewed shrimp in spicy tomato sauce. My splurges were the beef tamale that a ate 2/3 of and an egg roll which I’m pretty sure was baked and not fried.

It wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be eating at a buffet. I think it was easier since its a huge buffet and there were tons of choices to choose from. I made sure I went strait towards the vegetables and then filled in with a little bit of protein. Typically I would have had mashed potatoes and gravy, maybe some fried chicken or fish, cheesy potatoes, smoked sausage, pizza, pasta, multiple egg rolls, etc. Notice how I didn’t mention any vegetables? 🙂 My eating habits have definitely changed.

Another reason I think it was easier than I thought is because I was eating with my stepmom and my dad. My dad was super supportive and told me I did a really good job with dinner. He and my stepmom also told me they could tell I’ve lost weight, so that’s also super encouraging to hear.

I’m very lucky to have such supportive family and friends. My mom, dad, sister, stepmom, stepdad, all of my friends, and all of my blog followers have been so great helping me along this journey. I’d just like to say thanks to everybody for the support! It really helps keep me going!